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Brent Crude oil hit a more than three-year high on Thursday, breaking through the psychologically important $70 a barrel level for the first time since December 2014. Oil futures failed to hold the gains, selling off as the close of trading approached, with analysts warning that the market might have little room left to run. Brent, the international benchmark for oil prices, was last up 6 cents at $69.26 a barrel. It earlier spiked to $70.05 in morning trade, touching its…

Brent has risen by more than 10 percent since December. Oil has been supported by OPEC-led cuts, strong economic growth and tensions in OPEC-member Iran. Soaring U.S. crude production could undermine the rally. Oil prices were little changed on Monday, trading near their highest since May 2015, as political concerns in some OPEC nations offset projections for higher U.S. oil production. "Oil prices are finely balanced in today's trading session. Ongoing protests in Iran, together with recent detention of several…

U.S. shale oil will drive global production growth in the years to come, OPEC forecasts. However, global shale oil will peak in 2025, and OPEC's output will then surge through 2040, the cartel projects in its annual World Oil Outlook. OPEC raised its medium-term forecast through 2022 by 2.2 million barrels a day. The American shale drillers that have upended the energy industry will capture much of the growth in oil demand in the coming years, OPECforecasts in a new report.…

It's not preposterous to expect oil prices to hit $80 per barrel by the end of 2018, said Yoon Chou Chong, head of Asian equities at Natixis Asset Management Production cuts and the need to maintain stability ahead of the widely-anticipated Saudi Aramco IPO will support oil prices, Chong said Asian stocks, in particular Chinese shares, also have room to gain further, he added This year could mark a comeback for commodities, with oil potentially hitting $80 per barrel, a…

In recent years, America's unprecedented oil and gas boom has been driven by one factor above all others — and that's shale "The U.S. is emerging as, not only a military and economic superpower, but as an energy superpower," Martin Fraenkel, president at S&P Global Platts, told CNBC In November, the International Energy Agency projected a dramatic increase in shale production could transform the U.S. into the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas by the mid-2020s The U.S. is well-placed to…

U.S. crude oil production is likely to exit 2017 at roughly 10 million barrels per day, catching up with Saudi Arabia. By the end of 2018, the U.S. is likely to bypass the #1 producer Russia (just under 11 million barrels per day currently). Since 2014, the U.S. oil industry has made tremendous progress in productivity and is positioned to set new records in growth pace. However, significant and quick investments in equipment and infrastructure will be required. U.S. Shale…

U.S. crude oil production is flirting with record highs heading into the new year, thanks to the technological nimbleness of shale oil drillers . The current abundance has erased memories of 1973 gas lines, which raised pump prices dramatically, traumatizing the United States and reordering its economy. In the decades since, presidents and politicians have made pronouncements calling for U.S. energy independence. President Jimmy Carter in a televised speech compared the energy crisis of 1977 to “the moral equivalent of…

The IEA said that there were signs that the rise in U.S. crude oil supply was likely to continue into 2018 and upset rivals who are cutting back. U.S. oil producers are staging a dramatic comeback amid a recovering oil price that has allowed many of them to restart operations. Preliminary weekly data suggests that U.S. production increased further into early December. "We see that 2018 might not be quite so happy for OPEC producers, " the Paris-based organization said…

(Bloomberg) -- Oil futures were little changed as traders concerned about 2018 production growth shrugged off reports of a static rig count and falling U.S. stockpiles. Front-month futures rose 0.2 percent in New York, with a weekly gain of 2 percent. Prices jumped the last two days after U.S. data on Wednesday showed crude stockpiles tumbling. On Friday, the rig count remained at 747, but traders seemed unconvinced that U.S. production won’t continue to rise next year, undermining OPEC’s deal to…

The GOP tax overhaul passed both chambers of the U.S. Congress, although a lot remains to be done before a bill can reach the President’s desk. Still, there are a lot of changes in store for energy, and because much of the discrepancy between the two chambers is focused on some big-ticket tax items—and not energy—we can be reasonably confident about what to expect from the legislation in regard to the energy sector. On its face, the GOP tax proposal…